Graduation Quotes
Graduation has finally come! It’s not only a milestone for students, it’s also a milestone for the family and friends who have supported them. Graduation has always been a time to celebrate your accomplishments as a student and the hard work you’ve put into your education.
Look through our collection of inspirational graduation quotes to prepare your mind for the future.
80 Motivational Graduation Quotes For Fresh Graduates
“Take pride in how far you’ve come. Have faith in how far you can go. But don’t forget to enjoy the journey.”—Michael Josephson
“The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.”
—Edward Koch
—Edward Koch
“Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you’ll make a difference.”—Arie Pencovici
“Let us never be betrayed into saying we have finished our education; because that would mean we had stopped growing.”—Julia H. Gulliver
“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”
—Malcolm X
—Malcolm X
“To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too may one day be president of the United States.”—George W. Bush
“Now that you’ve graduated, just remember: Bosses don’t usually accept notes from your mother.”—Melanie White
“Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.”—Kyle Chandler
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.”—Dr. Seuss
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”—Thomas Edison
“So, I say to you, forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.”—Oprah Winfrey
“Now the first suggestion is to aim high, but be aware that even before you have reached your ultimate professional destination, if you always strive for excellence, you can and should have a substantial impact on the world in which you live.”—Sandra Day O’Connor
“You don’t go to university so you can punch a clock. You go to university so you can be in a position to make a difference.”—Janet Napolitano
“My dear terrified graduates, you are about to enter the most uncertain and thrilling period of your lives. The stories you are about to live are the ones you will be telling your children, and grandchildren, and therapists.”
—Lin-Manuel Miranda
—Lin-Manuel Miranda
“You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.”—Tom Brokaw
“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” – Napoleon Hill
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”—Grandma Moses
“Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.”—Will Rogers
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”—Dr. Seuss
“When you take risks, you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.”—Ellen DeGeneres
“Real courage is holding on to a still voice in your head that says, ‘I must keep going.’ It’s that voice that says nothing is a failure if it is not final. That voice that says to you, ‘Get out of bed. Keep going. I will not quit.’”—Cory Booker
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”—Mark Twain
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.”
—Anatole France
—Anatole France
“The most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and to not give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not.”—Ellen DeGeneres
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”—B.B. King
“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive: easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.”
—Henry Peter Brougham
—Henry Peter Brougham
“Your life is your story, and the adventure ahead of you is the journey to fulfill your own purpose and potential.”– Kerry Washington
“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” –Nora Roberts
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”—Mark Twain
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs . . . one step at a time.”
—Joe Girard
—Joe Girard
“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”—Theodore Roosevelt
“Be bold, be courageous, be your best.”—Gabrielle Giffords
“Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.”
—Anna Quindlen
—Anna Quindlen
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”—Henry David Thoreau
“When you leave here, don’t forget why you came.”—Adlai E. Stevenson
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules.”
—Neil Gaiman
—Neil Gaiman
“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.”—Joseph Addison
“Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!”—Louisa May Alcott
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Gandhi
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis
“Your families are extremely proud of you. You can’t imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money.”—Gary Bolding
“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”—Charles Schulz
“Knowledge is not power. The implementation of knowledge is power.”—Larry Winget
“Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.”—Leonardo da Vinci
“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”—Charles Swindoll
“Now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for you being here. Make good art.”—Neil Gaiman
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”—Winston Churchill
“The only thing you can do in this life is pursue your passions, celebrate your bloopers and never stop following your fear.”—Grace Helbig
“Graduation is not the end; it’s the beginning.”—Senator Orrin Hatch
“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”—Martin Luther King Jr.
“Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life.”—Frederick W. Robertson
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” –Steve Jobs
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”—Confucius
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”—Alexander Graham Bell
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”—Milton Berle
“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”—Mother Teresa
“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”—Vincent Van Gogh
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”—Steve Jobs
“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”—Albert Einstein
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”—Arthur Ashe
“We may live in an age of instant messaging, instant gratification and Instagram, but there is no way to short circuit the path to success.”—Tory Burch
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”—Benjamin Franklin
“Do all the other things, the ambitious things—travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes…but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.”—George Saunders
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” –H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”— Jim Rohn
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take experience first; the cash will come later.”—Harold Geneen
“Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.”—Stephen Colbert
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
—Henry Ford
—Henry Ford
“There is no script. Live your life. Soak it all in.”—Dick Costolo
“Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out.”—Art Linkletter
“In response to those who say to stop dreaming and face reality, I say keep dreaming and make reality.”
—Kristian Kan
—Kristian Kan
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”—J.K. Rowling
“Every person you meet knows something you don’t; learn from them.”—H Jackson Brown Jr.
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”—John Dewey
“The highest result of education is tolerance.”—Helen Keller
“Your education is a dress rehearsal for a life that is yours to lead.”—Nora Ephron
“There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more everyday like a photograph coming into focus.”—Jodie Foster